


An Anchor in the Dark

by CladoniaLaminaria



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Fjorclay Week 2020, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, but i thought maybe someone will enjoy it nevertheless :), fjord has a nightmare but it gets better, set on the ship the night after fjord's big whoopsie, some underwater/drowning elements just as a quick cw, this is my first fic ever which is why it's kinda bad and corny, we're all starved for content anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:42:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23824024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CladoniaLaminaria/pseuds/CladoniaLaminaria
Summary: Fjord has yet another nightmare, seemingly sent from Uk'otoa.He finds comfort with the Wildmother once again.But is it really just her who offers him comfort?
Relationships: Caduceus Clay/Fjord
Comments: 2
Kudos: 35





	An Anchor in the Dark

Sleep that night came easy for Fjord.

Between his sheer exhaustion and the safety within Caleb's bubble, with all his friends, with Caduceus' spirit guardian watching over him, there was nothing keeping him from passing out the second he lay down.  
He woke up to roll over to his other side. At least he thought he did. But when he moved there was no ground under him. No gravity. He opened his eyes, but there was nothing but darkness. He was breathing. But sluggishly. He felt his lungs fill with water, but he wasn't choking. Desperately he spun around looking for any source of light to guide him through this abyssal ocean.  
Suddenly he noticed the waters beneath him beginning to glow with a familiar yellow light. His stomach turned as he instinctively tried to swim away from it as fast as possible. Before he could make any significant progress he felt an ice cold tendril grasping his leg. He started kicking with all the strength he had left, but the tendril quickly wrapped around both of his legs with an iron grip. Within seconds it tucked him further down towards the light. Too fast to struggle against the pull. 

He whipped his head around in search of anything that might help him. But all he saw as the light grew brighter were...eyes. Hundreds of eyes. Maybe thousands. They continued the further down he was pulled. All of them set into a mass of a writhing serpentine body that seemed to coil around him in a 30 foot radius. Soon the eyes started to blur together into a vortex of lights as the tendril pulled him down ever faster. The feeling of increasing pressure started to set in. It grew slower than it logically should at this speed. The ringing in his ears getting ever so louder. His head getting closer and closer to feeling like it will simply explode. The pain made it hard not to squint. With his eyes closed he hoped for nothing more than to finally pass out from the pressure. But the pain only seemed to get worse. His legs felt like they were frozen solid and his skin like he was being dragged over sandpaper. 

In one last desperate attempt he opened his eyes as wide as he could. And there something new in front of him. A blurry linear shape reflecting the light. His eyes needed a moment to adjust but then he saw it. An anchor chain. It disappeared into nothingness in both directions, but every cell in his body screamed for him to reach out to it. He lunged forward, his strength somewhat returned to him by this newfound hope. His hand managed to grasp one of the rings and he quickly pulled himself toward it to wrap both his arms around it as tightly as he could muster. Pressed against the metal of the chain he noticed something strange. He expected the familiar cold touch of metal. Yet this chain was strangely warm. Comforting. 

He felt the tendril still tugging at his legs. But he no longer moved downwards. The friction of the water against his skin stopped. And then it changed. He was being dragged upwards. Slowly. Safely. The pressure started to subside and he was slowly gaining his senses back. He looked down to see the dark tendril around his legs flinching every time it came too close to the chain. It was starting to lose its grip and slowly slipped further down until it was merely wrapped around his ankle.  
At this point he had recovered enough of his strength to kick it off himself. He instinctively wrapped both his legs around the chain as well and hugged it tightly as it carried him upwards. The feeling of warmth and safety became more and more familiar to him. It was the same he felt when the Wildmother first protected him from Uko'toa's influence. It filled him with relief to know he had someone watching over him. To have a light in the darkness. 

It didn't take long for him to fall back asleep and get a decent amount of rest. When he woke up the next morning, the dream was the first thing on his mind. He wondered if it was just a normal dream for once. Nothing bad seemed to have happened to him, so it must be. But when he started to shift, he noticed that he was in fact wrapped around something with both his arm and his leg. Something warm. Someone warm. 

He opened his eyes to see that in his sleep he must have wrapped himself around Caduceus. The same way he had around the anchor chain in his dream. Startled, and sort of embarrassed, he wanted to move. But then he noticed it. That overwhelming feeling of warmth and safety. The feeling he so strongly associated with the Wildmother herself. It was still there. And it was stronger than any embarrassment or worry. He never wanted this feeling to go away.  
So he simply rested his head back against Caduceus' shoulder and closed his eyes. He managed to sleep another hour that morning. Dreamless and blissful, for the first time in a long while.  


Thanks to Caduceus. Thanks to his anchor.


End file.
